Analysis: Pope faced high bar on Israel trip

ANALYSIS

By STEVEN GUTKIN

updated 5:27 p.m. ET May 14, 2009

JERUSALEM - Even if he had said all the right things about the Nazi genocide of 6 million Jews, the German-born Pope Benedict XVI would have had a hard time winning over Israelis on his visit to the Jewish state.

His background as a German who served under the Nazis, the Roman Catholic Church's history of anti-Semitism, his predecessor's extraordinary outreach to Jews and a series of public relations gaffes — not to mention a long-standing dispute over the conduct of the Holocaust-era pope — created formidable obstacles for Benedict to overcome in his relations with the Jews.

So, it was not surprising that Israelis criticized the pope for failing to apologize for Catholic wrongdoings during a speech Monday at the country's national Holocaust memorial.

"The thorough preparations for his visit to Israel, the complex traffic and security arrangements, and the millions of shekels that were earmarked for his hospitality evaporated as if they did not exist thanks to a speech that was missing one word — 'sorry,'" said the lead editorial of the Israeli daily Haaretz on Wednesday.

Miscalculated impact
Regardless of whether Benedict deserves the criticism, it's clear he miscalculated the impact of what he chose to say and not say at the memorial.

Before he assumed the papacy, his decades of involvement in fostering Jewish-Catholic relations made him a favorite among Jewish leaders to become pope, said Rabbi David Rosen, one of Israel's leading voices in interfaith ties.

The apology Israeli critics said was so sorely missing from Benedict's speech Monday at Israel's Yad Vashem memorial has actually been made by the pontiff in the past.

In an audience with Jewish leaders at the Vatican earlier this year, Benedict recalled a prayer by his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, at the Western Wall in Jerusalem asking for God's forgiveness for the treatment of Jews and said "I now make his prayer my own."

Benedict's speech at Yad Vashem contained a powerful pledge to never forget the victims' names and a poignant allusion to the "joyful expectation" of victims' parents anxiously awaiting the birth of their children.

"What name shall we give this child? What is to become of him or her? Who could have imagined that they would be condemned to such a horrible fate," the pope said.

Speech didn't mention murder
Shortly after he said all this, however, the top two officials at Yad Vashem said they found the speech lacking because it failed to specifically mention the words "murder" or "Nazis" and left out the exact figure of 6 million Jews killed — in addition to the absence of a John Paul-like apology.

The speaker of Israel's parliament, Reuven Rivlin, criticized Benedict for coming off as detached, "as somebody observing from the sidelines." Tom Segev, a prominent columnist and Holocaust historian, characterized the pope as "restrained, almost cold."

Even Rabbi Arthur Schneier, a Holocaust survivor and a leader in interfaith relations, saw the speech as problematic despite his overall praise for Benedict.

"We should not be focusing just on an omission that took place at Yad Vashem, as painful as it might be," said Schneier, who joined the pope on his visit to the Western Wall on Tuesday.

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